Container Gardening Tips
Container gardens can create a natural sanctuary
in a busy city street, along rooftops or on balconies. You can easily accentuate
the welcoming look of a deck or patio with colorful pots of annuals, or fill
your window boxes with beautiful shrub roses or any number of small perennials.
Whether you arrange your pots in a group for a massed effect or highlight a
smaller space with a single specimen, you'll be delighted with this simple way
to create a garden.
Container gardening enables you to easily vary your color scheme, and as each
plant finishes flowering, it can be replaced with another. Whether you choose to
harmonize or contrast your colors, make sure there is variety in the height of
each plant. Think also of the shape and texture of the leaves. Tall strap-like
leaves will give a good vertical background to low-growing, wide-leaved plants.
Choose plants with a long flowering season, or have others of a different type
ready to replace them as they finish blooming.
Experiment with creative containers. You might have an old porcelain bowl or
copper urn you can use, or perhaps you'd rather make something really modern
with timber or tiles. If you decide to buy your containers ready-made,
terracotta pots look wonderful, but tend to absorb water. You don't want your
plants to dry out, so paint the interior of these pots with a special sealer
available from hardware stores.
Cheaper plastic pots can also be painted on the outside with water-based paints
for good effect. When purchasing pots, don't forget to buy matching saucers to
catch the drips. This will save cement floors getting stained, or timber floors
rotting.
Always use a good quality potting mix in your containers. This will ensure the
best performance possible from your plants.
If you have steps leading up to your front door, an attractive pot plant on each
one will delight your visitors. Indoors, pots of plants or flowers help to
create a cozy and welcoming atmosphere.
Decide ahead of time where you want your pots to be positioned, then buy plants
that suit the situation. There is no point buying sun lovers for a shady
position, for they will not do well. Some plants also have really large roots,
so they are best kept for the open garden.
If you have plenty of space at your front door, a group of potted plants off to
one side will be more visually appealing than two similar plants placed each
side. Unless they are spectacular, they will look rather boring.
Group the pots in odd numbers rather than even, and vary the height and type. To
tie the group together, add large rocks that are similar in appearance and just
slightly different in size. Three or five pots of the same type and color, but
in different sizes also looks affective.
With a creative mind and some determination, you will soon have a container
garden that will be the envy of friends and strangers alike.